Why don't women post here?

[WSUCougar]

For the record, this is An Attempt at a Serious Discussion. While I fully expect a rash of lewd one liners and kleenex-related humor, I’d like to hear some serious thoughts on this subject. I don’t really have a thesis, but rather some observations to throw out for comment.

I’ll begin by stating three assumptions:

(a) That the vast majority of FOFC posters are male
(b) That FOFC provides a decent representative sampling of text-simmers
(c) That – for the most part - the pool of text-simmers trickles down from sports fans

Feel free to debate these assumptions if you’d like (but if it gets out of hand…I’LL DELETE THIS THREAD! I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL!).

While spectator sports have traditionally fallen into the male sphere for the most part, I think we all can agree that women are very active fans as well. It depends a lot on the who, what, when, and where, but there is a sizable minority of female sports fans. Let’s take the four major sports: football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Attendance at any of those, whether college or pro, reflects significant female interest. Of course for women’s teams the fan base is tilted far toward women fans.

I think a case can be made that, with notable exceptions, female sports fans are often different in the way they follow sports than their male counterparts.

It’s much harder to observe any similar trends for computer games, and specifically those tied to sports. My sense, only from my own limited experience, is that female sports computer gamers are rather rare, and that female sports text sim gamers are almost non-existent.

But why?

I have some of my own ideas on this, but I want hear some other hypotheses first.

[Ksyrup]

This is like one of those government studies about what temperature water boils at.

Most computer and/or sports geeks are male. End of discussion.

[John Galt]

I think Ksyrup is generally right on this one. I think the cross section of football sim geeks is even more male oriented (I wonder if Jim has ever looked at the gender composition of his customer base). There have been a couple women that I remember, but they were definitely rare. I'd also think if a woman came here, she might not out herself because she wouldn't want to be a novelty who always attracts comments on her gender (or guys hitting on her in a joking fashion).

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

This is like one of those government studies about what temperature water boils at. End of discussion.

Thanks, bud, I love you, too.

The question is "WHY?"

[The Afoci]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Thanks, bud, I love you, too.

The question is "WHY?"

The same reason the most men who play with barbies only do so to touch boobs, because God said so.

[WSUCougar]

Take the analysis back several steps. Why are computer and/or sports geeks all male?

[Kodos]

I think it is mostly due to Fritz's presence. He drove that one guy's sister away.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Thanks, bud, I love you, too.

The question is "WHY?"

Hey! You took out my answer to your WHY!

OK...how about this?

If 75% of hardcore sports fans are male, and 85% of hardcore gamers are male, you don't have to be Kickstand to know that the odds are even less favorable that a female would be a hardcore sports gamer.

[WSUCougar]

Multi-part question, then:

Why aren't women "hardcore" sports fans?
Why aren't women "hardcore" gamers?
Why doesn't the fact that many women are sports fans (in some capacity) translate to gaming?

[John Galt]

This doesn't answer the new questions, but I also think the sports sim community is largely composed through word of mouth. Men tell other men about sports sim games, but usually not women.

[Kodos]

Women aren't as competitive as men. Thus, they don't care very much about sports, they care even less about sports games, and even less than that about forums dedicated to games about sports that they don't care about.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I think you're trying to get a little deeper than just "because" on this, so I'll take a stab at something.



We've established that "it's a guy thing". Maybe part of this goes back to the roots of our childhood play. I don't think it'd be hard to find a pretty good number of computer-based text-simmers of today who have spent time (considerable time even) with the dice-and-chart forerunners of today's games -- APBA, Strat-O-Matic, etc. Those games, and their usually less-sophisticated homemade counterparts, were a notable part of some of the childhoods around here & I don't think it's much of a reach to say that at least some of us play comp. text-sims here as simply the next evolution of those games. In all my life, I've never met a female APBA/SOM player. Not one. I've heard of a few, but even that has been pretty rare.

So perhaps one factor in the gender skew is that we have "history" with games like these that females don't really have; they didn't play with the same "building blocks" as the guys did.

[Rizon]

Slam some Backstreet Boys / Colin Ferrrel / N*Sync pictures, links to shopping sites, pictures of shoes and purses up on this site, and you'd get some girls.

[QuikSand]

I think that this genre appeals very much to a certain kind of analytical thinking. Same goes for really hardcore sports fandom -- if you really get into the numbers in detail, really follow things like offseason moves or drafting and that sort of thing -- you're just enjoying a rather different game than many less enthusiastic fans. And the same goes for things like role-playing games and (most) management-style simulations... they appeal to the empire builder in us.

And for whatever reason, by us above, I mean men. For whatever reason, these drives are just present in men -- especially intelligent and fairly young men -- more than women. I don't think that women lack imagination, I don't think they necessarily lack the skills necessary to comprehend thos sort of thing... but they by and large lack the drive to pursue it.

[WSUCougar]

I buy into the fact that women usually aren’t as competitive as men, or at least in a different way. I think that is a product of evolution, from strength-based, warrior clans in ancient history to the modern sports that emulate battles.

I also think that Jon’s point is well-taken. We have a support mechanism in place that has pointed us all in this direction.

Quiksand’s point is the one that puzzles me, and really what prompted me to start this thread. Bottom line for me is I get off on the number-crunching, thousands-of-possibilities, empire-building match up with the sports genre that I love for the reasons noted above. Incidentally, this is something that I’ve always linked to baseball as a particular joy. It tracks toward people like me.

But would that carry over for women, under scrutiny? To quote Quiksand, “but they by and large lack the drive to pursue it.”

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

But would that carry over for women, under scrutiny? To quote Quiksand, “but they by and large lack the drive to pursue it.”

You probably ought to check this guy's work
http://www.cas.suffolk.edu/psychology/katz.html

Also
http://web.umr.edu/~endc/readinglist.html#Gender

[sjshaw]

What are these "women" of which you speak?

[Ksyrup]

And here I thought Bob Ross died!

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Girls are too smart to waste all their time on crap like this.

Additionally, they're too busy in the kitchen baking me a pie.

[AgustusM]

If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle

[Poli]

I have yet to read all the posts, but do you think it could be because women who actually like football don't know of this place?

[RendeR]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Women aren't as competitive as men. Thus, they don't care very much about sports, they care even less about sports games, and even less than that about forums dedicated to games about sports that they don't care about.

Response from my wife (who is a member here*telle*)
"Women are not 'Friendly' competitive...."

[cthomer5000]

I don't know why they're not intersted. I also don't know why women seem to think it's reasonable to own 25+ purses/handbags.

It's definitely a majority social upbringing, but what exactly drives men and women to be so different on the whole is completely beyond me.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by RendeR

Response from my wife (who is a member here*telle*)
"Women are not 'Friendly' competitive...."

I think there is some very serious truth to this. If any of you have seen the differences between a show like "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette", you can see it. The guys (largely) all seem to do their best to win over the chick, but act pretty civil towards each other during the whole process. The women on the other hand are all talking shit, trying to back-stab each other, etc. I think on the whole, women make competition much more personal.

[gstelmack]

The assumption that women aren't hardcore sports gamers might be accurate, but the assumption that there aren't many female hardcore gamers / computer geeks is completely false. They tend to be quiet and like different games, but there are more hardcore gaming females than you might think. My wife works with me as a programmer at a game company and plays lots of games, for example, and the Warcraft group I play with is half female. There are a surprising number of women who play tactical shooters; they aren't necessarily as big into run-and-gun games like Quake, but thinking games see a fairly high proportion of female gamers.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

For the record, this is An Attempt at a Serious Discussion. While I fully expect a rash of lewd one liners and kleenex-related humor, I’d like to hear some serious thoughts on this subject. I don’t really have a thesis, but rather some observations to throw out for comment.

I’ll begin by stating three assumptions:

(a) That the vast majority of FOFC posters are male
(b) That FOFC provides a decent representative sampling of text-simmers
(c) That – for the most part - the pool of text-simmers trickles down from sports fans

Feel free to debate these assumptions if you’d like (but if it gets out of hand…I’LL DELETE THIS THREAD! I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL!).

While spectator sports have traditionally fallen into the male sphere for the most part, I think we all can agree that women are very active fans as well. It depends a lot on the who, what, when, and where, but there is a sizable minority of female sports fans. Let’s take the four major sports: football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Attendance at any of those, whether college or pro, reflects significant female interest. Of course for women’s teams the fan base is tilted far toward women fans.

I think a case can be made that, with notable exceptions, female sports fans are often different in the way they follow sports than their male counterparts.

It’s much harder to observe any similar trends for computer games, and specifically those tied to sports. My sense, only from my own limited experience, is that female sports computer gamers are rather rare, and that female sports text sim gamers are almost non-existent.

But why?

I have some of my own ideas on this, but I want hear some other hypotheses first.

There is nothing on this board that would appeal or interest any woman. Not one thread. There are a lot of things said that women would dislike. It's that simple.

[Telle]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

There is nothing on this board that would appeal or interest any woman. Not one thread. There are a lot of things said that women would dislike. It's that simple.

Wow, that's one hell of a generalization.

[Easy Mac]

Becuase a woman would ruin all of the homo erotic innuendo that occurs at an all male board... they know this and stay away.

And don't we still have the hattrick girl from MD.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

There is nothing on this board that would appeal or interest any woman. Not one thread. There are a lot of things said that women would dislike.

And the few who are remotely interested, run screaming from the infamous SkyDog porch photo.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Telle

Wow, that's one hell of a generalization.

No, it's the simple truth. Obviously you can't handle it.

[Desnudo]

Maybe you are right. After I looked at the threads below this one:

Playstation games rated
Justice Dept. and porno
Rant on Potty Mouthism
South Carolina Republican Debate Review

That's a paradise for women! I'm sorry for generalizing.

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

No, it's the simple truth. Obviously you can't handle it.

She can't????

[Desnudo]

I should have never even replied to this thread. I'm going to the UEFA Cup one. Good bye.

[tucker342]

were not cocky and funny enough...

seriously though, textbased sports games are probably not very popular with women

[Dutch]

Women just play Madden, hoping to see a shot of some dude's ass in tights. Text sports just aren't that revealing.

[Fritz]

I can get them here. stay tuned

[Radii]

I know my fiancee reads this board on occasion. She has yet to run screaming from any post she has read.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

I think there is some very serious truth to this. If any of you have seen the differences between a show like "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette", you can see it. The guys (largely) all seem to do their best to win over the chick, but act pretty civil towards each other during the whole process. The women on the other hand are all talking shit, trying to back-stab each other, etc. I think on the whole, women make competition much more personal.

Sorry, I can't really speak to "The Bachelor" et al (*wretch*). But, it seems that they take competition much more seriously. I'll stay up all hours of the night debating friends of mine and we'll want to do it again the next day. But, if I try to do the same with my girlfriend, she takes every debate personally even if it has nothing to do with her. And I've seen this a lot in girls- they tend to really dislike any sort of competition because they take losing very personally. But, if you ask me if I won or lost playing hockey the other night, I'd gladly offer up "we lost, but we'll get 'em next time". So it's just not worth the risk/reward- if you take competition to that point that it takes a mental toll when you lose either because your competition is much less friendly or just because it's a personality trait, I'm sure it's just not something you want to go back to.

SI

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Sorry, I can't really speak to "The Bachelor" et al (*wretch*). But, it seems that they take competition much more seriously. I'll stay up all hours of the night debating friends of mine and we'll want to do it again the next day. But, if I try to do the same with my girlfriend, she takes every debate personally even if it has nothing to do with her. And I've seen this a lot in girls- they tend to really dislike any sort of competition because they take losing very personally. But, if you ask me if I won or lost playing hockey the other night, I'd gladly offer up "we lost, but we'll get 'em next time". So it's just not worth the risk/reward- if you take competition to that point that it takes a mental toll when you lose either because your competition is much less friendly or just because it's a personality trait, I'm sure it's just not something you want to go back to.

SI

Right on. I have friend who always leaves messages on my answering machine which begins with "hey, loser." It drives my wife nuts. "Why do you let him do that?" She asks. Little does she know, I regularly call him worse. It is just the "fun competion" that male friends have. She cannot in any fashion fathom that it is not personal. She relates it to a friend calling her and saying "hey, fatty."

[Fritz]

there is some wisdom here that would have been of some use early in my marriage.

Fritz says "hey dummy, turn the stove off" to a buddy, "turn the stove off" is the important part of the message.

Fritz says "hey dummy, turn the stove off" to the soontobeexmrsfritz, "you think I am a dummy" comes back up 5 years later.

[oliegirl]

I read this board pretty frequently...I am a sports fan, especially College Football, but I can't recite statistics or name head coaches from 50 years ago. Women (for the most part) are sports fans because they enjoy watching the game and it's fun. We don't become as obsessed with it as men do and start memorizing the history of the teams and dissecting every play to decide how it could have turned out differently.

I don't know why they're not intersted. I also don't know why women seem to think it's reasonable to own 25+ purses/handbags.

As for the reasoning behind having 25+ purses in our closets - it's all about variety! Most women have one or two purses they love and use on a daily basis all the time. But it's nice to have fun and cute purses to choose from every once in a while too. If we could have an assortment of men stashed in our closet we would!

[Butter]

I can't even play Monopoly with my wife (well, beat her that is), because if I beat her it's the cold shoulder for at least that night and maybe continuing into the following day.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

If we could have an assortment of men stashed in our closet we would!

And here I was thinking that you wanted the bigger closet for all of the shoes...

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

Women (for the most part) are sports fans because they enjoy watching the game and it's fun. We don't become as obsessed with it as men do and start memorizing the history of the teams and dissecting every play to decide how it could have turned out differently.

Thanks for replying.

Can you address the statements I've quoted in a bit more detail? Specifically, what element(s) about watching sports are "fun," and why do you find the things you mention for men unappealing? Stats, for example.

[Butter]

Most women I know who are sports fans were raised watching sports. In this nature/nurture debate, I'm going to have to go with NURTURE, by quite a margin. If you were raised a sports fan, chances are you remain one your whole life. Most women are NOT raised as sports fans.

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Most women I know who are sports fans were raised watching sports. In this nature/nurture debate, I'm going to have to go with NURTURE, by quite a margin. If you were raised a sports fan, chances are you remain one your whole life. Most women are NOT raised as sports fans.

But in terms of gaming I think the disconnect comes after that point. It's the way women are sports fans that makes a difference, not whether they are or not.

[Fritz]

you have the prettiest eyes

Originally Posted by oliegirl

I read this board pretty frequently...I am a sports fan, especially College Football, but I can't recite statistics or name head coaches from 50 years ago. Women (for the most part) are sports fans because they enjoy watching the game and it's fun. We don't become as obsessed with it as men do and start memorizing the history of the teams and dissecting every play to decide how it could have turned out differently.



As for the reasoning behind having 25+ purses in our closets - it's all about variety! Most women have one or two purses they love and use on a daily basis all the time. But it's nice to have fun and cute purses to choose from every once in a while too. If we could have an assortment of men stashed in our closet we would!

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

I read this board pretty frequently...I am a sports fan, especially College Football, but I can't recite statistics or name head coaches from 50 years ago. Women (for the most part) are sports fans because they enjoy watching the game and it's fun. We don't become as obsessed with it as men do and start memorizing the history of the teams and dissecting every play to decide how it could have turned out differently.



As for the reasoning behind having 25+ purses in our closets - it's all about variety! Most women have one or two purses they love and use on a daily basis all the time. But it's nice to have fun and cute purses to choose from every once in a while too. If we could have an assortment of men stashed in our closet we would!

Not my alias

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Fritz

you have the prettiest eyes

She's mine, and plus, you already have your trout.

[Blade6119]

Originally Posted by Radii

She's mine, and plus, you already have your trout.

Thats why women dont read the board...